There are a number of reasons why we should consciously and deliberately
apply the test of evidential value in the sense in which this term has
been defined and why records having such value should be preserved regardless
of whether there is an immediate or even a foreseeable specific use for
them.

An accountable government should certainly preserve some minimum of
evidence on how it was organized and how it functioned, in all its numerous
and complex parts. All archivists assume that the minimum record to be
kept is the record of organization and functioning and that beyond this
minimum values become more debatable. By a judicious selection of various
groups and series an archivist can capture in a relatively small body of
records all significant facts on an agency's existence -- its patterns of
action, its policies in dealing with all classes of matters, its procedures,
its gross achievement.

Records containing such facts are indispensable to the government itself
and to students of government. For the government they are a storehouse
of administrative wisdom and experience. They are needed to give consistency
and continuity to its actions. They contain precedents for policies, procedures,
and the like, and can be used as a guide to public administrators in solving
problems of the present that are similar to others dealt with in the past
or, equally important, in avoiding past mistakes. They contain the proof
of each agency's faithful stewardship of the responsibilities delegated
to it and the accounting that every important public official owes to the
people whom he serves. For students of public administration who wish to
analyze the experiences of an agency in dealing with organizational, procedural,
and policy matters, they provide the most reliable source of what actually
was done.

The test of evidential value is a practical one. It involves an objective
approach that the modern archivist is especially trained to take; for his
training in historical methodology has taught him to look into the origin,
development, and the working of human institutions and to use records for
the purpose. The test is not easy, but it is definite. It will bring to
view first the records on which judgments of value can be made with some
degree of assurance, the degree depending upon the thoroughness with which
the records have been analyzed. It can be applied by all archivists, for
no archivist is likely to question that evidence of every agency's organization
and functioning should be preserved. Differences of judgment will arise
only as to the completeness with which such evidence should be preserved.
The test of research value, on the other hand, brings to view records on
which judgments are bound to differ widely.

The information obtained by an archivist in applying the test of evidential
value will also serve to evaluate the significance of records from other
points of view. The archivist must know how records came into being if
he is to judge their value for any purpose. Public records, or, for that
matter, records of any organic body, are the product of activity, and much
of their meaning is dependent on their relation to the activity. If their
source in an administrative unit of a government or in a particular activity
is obscured, their identity and meaning are likely also to be obscured.
In this respect they are unlike private manuscripts, which often have a
meaning of their own without relation to their source or reference to other
manuscripts in a collection.

In applying the test of evidential value the archivist is likely to
preserve records that have other values as well -- records that are useful
not only for the public administrator and the students of public administration,
but also for the economist, sociologist, historian, and scholars generally.

EUROPEAN VIEWS ON
EVIDENTIAL VALUES

Archivists of various countries have developed appraisal standards that
require the preservation of records showing how public agencies were organized
and conducted their business. German archivists, in particular, have been
quite precise in this regard. (Footnote
3). In 1901 H. O. Meissner, head of the Prussian Privy State Archives,
formulated a number of appraisal standards that have had a pronounced effect
on the German archival profession. One of these is that files (in the sense
of binders of documents brought together in registries) that relate to
executive direction should be preserved for each organizational unit. Among
the executive matters that Meissner recognized as worthy of record were
the organization, direction, housing and business arrangements, and personnel
of the unit. Another standard is that general files (those consisting of
records on policy, procedure, and the like that have general applicability)
should be preserved in the central organizational units where they originated -- that
is, where they grew out of the functioning of an organizational unit -- and
not at points where they were merely transmitted or received; and that
the value of general files in subordinate organizational units should be
determined by taking into account the activities of such units. A third
standard is that records of intermediate organizational units should be
preserved if they relate to the actual management of such units and not
merely to their direction from above. A fourth standard is that special
files of lower or subordinate organizational units should be preserved
if they relate to the management of such units. And a fifth standard is
that files of judicial bodies should be preserved if they relate to the
substantive activities of such bodies or if they reflect the development
of permanent rights and institutions, important historical episodes, political
processes, or the customs and mores of past ages.

Shortly before the Second World War the Prussian Privy State Archives
appointed a special commission to formulate appraisal standards. The commission
was dissolved in 1940 before it succeeded in doing this, but its activities
stimulated a review of the appraisal problem by German archivists. At their
meeting at Gotha, Meissner emphasized the importance of a correct archival
approach in appraisal work, insisting that the old conception of appraisal
as a matter of intuitive or fingertip feeling was completely discredited.
His standards were endorsed by H. Meinert, who emphasized that appraisals
should take into account the significance of the source of archives. This
should be established by considering the position of each organizational
unit in the government structure, the nature of its activities, and the
relation of its activities to those of superior and subordinate organizational
units. Records, Meinert held, cannot be reviewed singly as isolated pieces;
they must be appraised in their administrative context.

British archivists also have emphasized the importance of preserving
records on how organic bodies function. Their views on appraisal were first
stated fully in a memorandum issued in 1943 by the British Records Association
in connection with the wartime demand for paper salvage. In a pamphlet
issued later by the Public Record Office the principles of appraisal contained
in this memorandum were applied to public documents. This pamphlet, entitled
"Principles governing the Elimination of Ephemeral or Unimportant
Documents in Public or Private Archives," discussed the principles
in relation to preserving records for business purposes and research purposes.
(Footnote
4). For purposes of research the British would preserve records for
three "historical or general uses": (1) to show the history of
the organization concerned, (2) to answer technical questions regarding
its operations, and (3) to meet possible scholarly needs for the information
that is incidentally or accidentally contained in the records. The first
two of these uses relate to "evidential values," the third to
"informational values," in the sense in which these terms are
used in this bulletin.

For the first, i.e. the history of the organization concerned, the British
pamphlet favors preserving records that contain sufficient evidence to
show "what was the Business or other form of organization whose
activities they served--how it was conducted, by whom, and
with what results." It indicates that the records containing
this evidence are similar to those needed for the conduct of business.
These include "Minutes and other Documents which give decisions
on Policy; major series of Accounts; Correspondence leading to significant
activity; Muniments of Title relating to Land and Property held
by the person or organization concerned; and regularly kept Registers
or Memoranda of Cases, Tests or Operations, Transactions put
through or Operations carried out: roughly all the Documents reflecting
policy and practice, past and present, which would enable someone else,
if the present staff or practitioner were wiped out, to carry on or revive
the business or work." For evidentiary purposes, the selection of
records may be a bit more drastic than for business purposes, however.
"Very often," according to the pamphlet, "all needs are
served by preserving a few key documents and representative selections
from regularly kept series and from large classes of constantly recurring
documents of a routine character. Specimens should be selected for
their representative character as illustrating the structure of the Business
rather than for any adventitious interest . . ."

For the second use, that is, to answer technical questions regarding
an organization's operations, the pamphlet would preserve evidence only
for organizations that belong to "acategory of Institutions
or Businesses whose Archives have rarely been preserved," that
are themselves of "outstanding importance" in comparison
with others in the same category, or that belong to "a category of
Businesses etc. the general history and development of which are of outstanding
importance and can only be traced by the use of collective evidence."

APPLYING THE TEST OF
EVIDENTIAL
VALUES

Thus far we have considered the thought of European archivists on the
appraisal of public records from the point of view of their value in documenting
the functioning of the bodies that produced them; let us now turn to the
appraisal standards relating to the evidential values of the Federal records
of the United States.

At the outset it is important to emphasize that appraisals of evidential
values should be made on the basis of a knowledge of the entire documentation
of an agency; they should not be made on a piecemeal basis. The archivist
must know the significance of particular groups of records produced at
various levels of organization in relation to major programs or functions.
In many Federal agencies, offices at various organizational levels build
up their own files, which are usually related to and often duplicate, in
part at least, those of offices below or above. In the central organizations
of such agencies departmental records may be related to bureau records,
bureau records to divisional, and divisional to sectional. In field organizations
records of regional offices may be related to those in State offices, and
records of State offices to those in subordinate offices. The use of modern
duplicating devices, moreover, may lead to an extensive proliferation of
records in any particular office.

In reviewing the entire documentation of an agency, the archivist's
decisions on which of its records he should preserve depends on a number
of factors, the more important of which are embodied in the following questions:

1. Which organizational units in the central office of an agency have
primary responsibility for making decisions regarding its organization,
programs, policies, and procedures? Which organizational units carry on
activities that are auxiliary to making such decisions? Which field officers
have discretion in making such decisions? Which record series are essential
to reflect such decisions?

2. To which functions of an agency do the records relate? Are they substantive
functions? Which record series are essential to show how each substantive
function was performed at each organizational level in both the central
and field offices?

3. What supervisory and management activities are involved in administering
a given function? What are the successive transactions in its execution?
Which records pertain to the executive direction, as distinct from the
execution of the function? To what extent are such records physically duplicated
at various organizational levels? Which records summarize the successive
transactions performed under the function? Which records should be preserved
in exemplary form to show the work processes at the lower organizational
levels?

While an archivist dealing with modern public records will have great
difficulty in reducing them to manageable proportions, he will nonetheless
often find that the records he wants were not produced at all. The records
on important matters with which he is concerned are often not so complete
as records on unimportant matters. It is a curious anomaly that the more
important a matter, the less likely is a complete documentation of it to
be found. While modern technology has aided the making and keeping of records
in many ways, it has also made unnecessary the production of many documents
that once would have become part of the record of Government action. Much
that influences the development of policies and programs never makes its
way into formal records. Important matters may be handled orally in conferences
or by telephone, an instrument that has been referred to as the "great
robber of history." (Footnote
5).

Records on important matters are often handled much less carefully while
in current use than are records on unimportant matters. This lack of care
is not intentional. Policy documents cannot always be identified as such
when they are first created. Policies usually arise in respect to particular
transactions, and so the records pertaining to them may be interfiled with
others of no lasting moment on the transactions with which they were initially
associated. Records on policy and procedural matters -- on general as distinct
from specific matters -- are difficult to assemble, to organize into recognizable
file units, and to identify in such a way that their significance will
be apparent. Records of routine operations, on the other hand, are easily
managed in a routine way.

The important policy documents are also difficult to schedule for retirement.
Important records on policy and procedure do not become obsolete, or noncurrent,
as soon as the transactions in connection with which they may have been
made are completed. The policies and procedures they establish often continue
in effect. And even if those policies and procedures are superseded, the
records of them serve to explain and give meaning to the change. Such records
are thus difficult to retire because the period of their administrative
utility is difficult to establish. Records evidencing only the execution
of policies and procedures, on the other hand, usually become noncurrent
when action on the particular case has been completed. The termination
of routine actions is usually definite and clear. Important records, moreover,
are difficult to assemble for preservation in an archival institution because
many of them must first be segregated from the mass of trivia in which
they may have been submerged. And at the present time this segregation
commonly has to be made after the records have lost their significance
for current operations and their identity has become obscured, although
more effective management of current records could greatly improve this
situation over the years.

Let us now see more specifically what kinds of records should be preserved
as evidence of organization and function.

Records on Origins

It is obvious that records on the origins of any governmental undertaking
should be preserved. These may relate to problems or conditions that led
to the establishment of a Government agency, such as a decline of agricultural
prices, an increase of unemployment in the automotive industry, inequities
in the regulation of interstate commerce, and the like. "Important
problems," as quoted by the eminent Australian historian Dr. C. E.
W. Bean from a circular sent to all departments by the Prime Minister,
"are often met in their simplest form in the original stage of any
undertaking. Often at that stage the object of the undertaking is most
clear, and the difficulties most apparent. Records as to origin of action
or organization have therefore peculiar value. Where, for example, a new
Department has sprung from a branch of some other Department, and that
branch itself has sprung from a Departmental Committee (or even from a
public movement) which tried to grapple with the relevant problems when
first they arose, the story of these initial efforts often contains the
most important lesson for posterity." (Footnote
6). Records that relate to problems may be in the form of investigative
reports of the executive branch of the Federal Government, minutes of hearings
before congressional committees, conference minutes, and memoranda and
opinions of individuals. Records that relate to the actual establishment
of a Government agency may consist of statutes and Executive orders as
well as drafts and supporting material relating to legislative and executive
action. Records that relate to its initial activities are likely to be
quite scanty. In its early stages, a governmental agency normally consists
only of a few persons who are concerned with planning its organizational
structure and programs. Their plans may not be committed to writing at
all, and, if written, may not be preserved. For at first documents -- often
of the greatest significance to the early history of an agency -- are simply
shoved into desk drawers, and only after the functions of the agency have
become well defined are records kept systematically in files. The administrative
orders and charts that initially define the structure and programs of an
agency -- the early planning documents, however sketchy and perhaps inadequate
in content -- should be carefully preserved.

Records on Substantive
Programs

It is equally obvious that once an agency has been established some
records should be preserved on its substantive programs. An example of
how such records may be selected and reduced to manageable proportions -- to
less than 1 percent of the total -- is found in the work of the Records Branch
of the Office of Price Administration during the Second World War. This
agency, as is apparent from its title, was concerned with the control of
prices and the rationing of commodities during the war period. As a basis
for establishing and fixing prices it had to gather economic data on various
industries, and to obtain the observance of its regulations it had to engage
in an enforcement program. Its four major programs thus related to Price
Control, Rationing, Accounting, and Enforcement, each of which was handled
by a major organizational unit. In preserving records on these programs,
the Records Branch of the agency selected certain kinds of records on each
program at all administrative levels -- national, regional, district, and
local -- which in their entirety contained information on every aspect of
its direction and execution.

Often summary narrative accounts exist of the direction and execution
of an agency's programs. These accounts may be in the form of (1) annual
or other periodic reports on accomplishments or (2) agency histories. Periodic
reports, which are produced by most Government agencies, are an important
but an inadequate record of accomplishment. They are inadequate because
they are usually very brief, touching on just the highlights of an agency's
work, and because they are usually uncritical, providing little information
that is unfavorable to the agency.

Agency histories, which are often produced in relation to war emergency
activities, are also inadequate as a record of an agency's work, though
they constitute a very valuable supplement to its official documentation.
In an article in The Library Quarterly of January 1946, Dr. W. J.
Wilson, an historian in the Office of Price Administration, drew an interesting
analogy between summarizations of statistical data and summarizations of
records of administration and operation. He found that most of the statistical
data accumulated by his agency, as well as by the War Production Board,
during the Second World War could be summarized in tabulations and enumerations.
He stated that "unless the masses of economic data [existing in innumerable
administrative and statistical forms] are summarized statistically, they
are almost useless for scientific work." Similarly he thought that
"unless the masses of administrative and operating files are summarized
in intelligible narratives, they are almost useless for historical work."
He concluded, on the basis of this analogy, which he admitted was imperfect,
that such files may be destroyed (1) "if the important historical
information [in them] has been extracted and has been satisfactorily presented
in narrative form . . . except perhaps for certain samples or certain illustrative
documents of outstanding significance," (2) if "no historical
narrative is likely ever to be based on them" because of their defective
or confused condition, or (3) if they are not likely to be "used rather
promptly for historical purposes." But this statement goes too far.
Administrative history, just as any other kind of history, cannot be written
definitively or objectively. No matter how well-conceived and well-executed
an historical program may be, it cannot produce histories that will serve
as a substitute for the original records. Official interpretations of records
may be influenced by many factors -- the bias of the writer (which is usually
an important element in the writing of official history), the competency
of the writer in historical synthesis, the immediacy of the writing to
the matter written about, and the like. The archivist's function is to
preserve the evidence on which reinterpretations can be based, not merely
to preserve current official interpretations of evidence; and to preserve
this evidence impartially, without bias of any sort, and as fully as public
resources will permit.

Policy documents, just as the summary reports of accomplishment,
should be singled out for special attention in a record retention program.
The term "policy documents," in the narrow sense of its meaning,
relates to the special issuances that serve to communicate staff policies
and procedures to the various line offices of an agency. No rigid distinction
can be made between "policy" and "procedure." In general,
policies are guiding principles that indicate the course of action to be
followed in various kinds of transactions while procedures give detailed
instructions on the specific methods and steps to be followed in carrying
out policies. The policies and procedures may relate to matters of varying
degrees of importance. Regulations, for example, are of a permanent nature;
other materials of an informational character such as notices are usually
of a temporary or, at most, of a semipermanent nature. The directives that
embody policies and procedures may he issued in various series, according
to the degree of their importance, or according to the type of function
to which they relate, i.e. facilitative or substantive. They may also be
issued in various forms. Directives of a permanent nature are issued in
the form of manuals or handbooks; while those of a temporary or semipermanent
nature from the operating standpoint, intended to be periodically superseded,
are normally issued in looseleaf series. Sets of all issuances should be
preserved for archival purposes. They should normally be obtained at the
organizational level at which they were created. They should include issuances
that have been superseded as well as those currently in effect. They may
include a master set of the forms developed for each of the procedures
followed. Because of careless handling of records in temporary agencies
it is often quite necessary to designate specific sets of serial issuances
as record sets, a procedure that is important also in regular Government
agencies. These record sets may include procedural, policy, organizational,
and reportorial documents. Such documents are often reproduced in innumerable
copies and are liberally broadcast throughout various offices. Unless a
conscious attempt is made to develop record sets, stich documents often
are neither accumulated nor preserved systematically.

The term "policy document" in the broadest sense of its meaning
may include many papers that relate to the courses of action followed in
an agency. It may include, in addition to the series of policy and procedural
issuances, all kinds of records -- correspondence, minutes of conferences,
staff studies, accomplishment and special reports, legal opinions and interpretations,
organizational and functional charts, memoranda defining or delegating
powers and responsibilities, and the like. It may include, in a word, any
paper that shows the reasons why programs came into being, as well as papers
that show how the programs were administered and executed.

Policy records, in the broad sense of the term, should not be regarded
as a separate class of documents. No attempt should be made to bring them
together into a separate collection. During the Second World War a program
was developed to create a "policy documentation file" for one
of the war agencies. It was planned to select policy documents (in the
broad sense of the term) and to incorporate them into a separate file organized
according to the Dewey-decimal system. The criteria of selection were not
sufficiently well defined, nor could they have been, for they could not
be made broad enough to capture all significant documents, and if they
had been made broad enough they would have been largely meaningless. As
a rule when individual documents are arbitrarily torn from their context,
namely from the files of the organizational units that created them, they
lose much of their meaning as a record of organization and function. If
records are to serve as evidence of organization and function, the arrangement
given them by the organizational units that created them should be maintained:
and they should not be reorganized on a subject or other basis.

The records, then, that are encompassed in the term "policy documents"
should be preserved so that they reflect the day-to-day work of policy-making
and policy-execution in the organizational unit that produced them. They
should be selected office by office in such a way that the various groups
that are preserved will show how an agency was organized and how it carried
out its functions. In appraising the evidential values of public records
an archivist must be particularly conscious of organization, for these
values largely depend on the position of the office that produced them
in the administrative hierarchy of the agency. In general, the records
of offices decrease in value as one descends the administrative ladder
of an agency.

Most of the significant documentation of an agency's origins and programs
is found in the files of "top management." These should be preserved
virtually intact for the heads of executive departments and independent
agencies, though they should be purged of records on house-keeping matters.
Often such files should be preserved for the senior administrative officers
just underneath the agency heads, such as the chiefs of bureaus, or the
chiefs of organizational units that are the equivalent of bureaus, such
as services and administrations in the central organization and regional
and State offices in the field organization. Records of executive direction
are often embodied in bureau central files. If such records are to be preserved
it may be necessary to keep large quantities of rather unimportant records
along with them. If records are properly classified while they are in current
use this is not necessary.

The extent to which one should go down the administrative ladder to
capture the significant documentation varies from agency to agency, and
is generally determined by the extent to which the activities of its organizational
units are disparate in character or its administrative responsibilities
are decentralized. In an executive department like Commerce, for example,
the various bureaus concern themselves with such matters as weather, foreign
and domestic commerce, standards, and coast and geodetic surveys. These
disparate matters cannot be handled centrally except in a most general
way. The important records on the programs, plans, policies, and the like
are thus obviously created at the bureau level. The extent to which the
records of any particular officer should be preserved depends on whether
he has substance rather than a mere semblance of authority, whether he
actually plans and directs and administers the work of his organizational
unit or is merely the communicating agent for directions from above. The
records of key officers may include their correspondence files, minutes
of conferences and staff meetings, official diaries (if any were kept),
memoranda, directives, and various other evidences of official action.

Attached to the offices of most heads of Government agencies are a number
of organizational units that are engaged in research and investigation
incidental to the formulation of plans, policies, or procedures or that
are engaged in handling legal problems, budgetary matters, public relations,
or internal management. Research and investigative records are of
undoubted importance, for they often contain the rationale of Government
programs -- the reasons why they came into being and were handled as they
were. They may include staff studies and special reports which analyze
workloads and performance or develop plans, policies, or procedures. Even
background working papers of research and investigative offices may have
value and should be examined carefully. On legal matters the archivist
should normally preserve the correspondence files of the chief legal officer,
opinions and interpretations, memoranda of law, delegations of authority,
and other documents providing background information on the legal decisions
of the agency. On budget matters the archivist should normally preserve
copies of the budgets submitted to the Bureau of the Budget and the House
of Representatives, and related papers such as estimates of requirements
and justifications.

Public relations officers are concerned chiefly with publications,
which they often merely distribute, and publicity materials, which they
usually create themselves. The form of such materials is not the determining
factor in considering their suitability for retention in an archival institution,
for books are included among the documentary materials that fall within
the definition of the term "archives." Publications produced
in the performance of substantive functions should, as a rule, be preserved
in libraries rather than in an archival institution. This is the case with
respect to bulletins, pamphlets, circulars, and other issuances produced
by agencies engaged in scientific, statistical, or research activities.
There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Record sets of administrative
publications created by an agency that are basic to an understanding of
its functioning or organization, and publications accumulated by an agency
that are basic to its own policy formulation should be retained in an archival
institution. Publications embodied in records relating to their creation
may also be considered eligible, particularly if the records contain successive
drafts of important publications that reflect substantial changes in content.

Publicity materials produced in connection with informational
and promotional activities should be preserved in an archival institution
rather than in libraries. They provide the main documentation of programs
that some agencies must undertake to interpret their actions to the public.
Publicity materials may be in the form of press and radio releases, bulletins,
pamphlets, charts, posters, and the like. They are often produced in large
quantities but usually disappear almost as rapidly as they are created,
for they are often considered as not falling within the definition of "records."
The problem with respect to such materials is that of obtaining master
files of each of the items from which all duplicate copies have been eliminated.
The files should be obtained at the organizational level at which they
were created. Press clippings should be retained if they are necessary
to record informational activities or substantive functions of an agency
on which other documentary materials are inadequate, and if they are organized
in such a way as to be usable. The origin of the press clippings must also
be taken into account. Nonsyndicated press clippings of specialized or
small newspapers or journals should be given preference over those taken
from metropolitan newspapers that are readily available at the Library
of Congress.

On internal management or "housekeeping" activities,
such as those relating to personnel, property, supply, and travel, relatively
few records need be saved for archival purposes. In evaluating certain
types of such records account must be taken of the retention of related
records by the General Accounting Office, the Treasury Department, and
the Civil Service Commission. The value of accounting records of particular
offices for a study of Federal accounting practices, for example, is affected
by the work of the General Accounting Office since 1921 in progressively
standardizing Government accounting systems. Before that time the records
on such practices are found in the several agencies and in the commissions
that investigated contemporary practices; after that time, in the files
of the General Accounting Office. The value of records of particular personnel
offices, similarly, is affected by the progressive standardization of personnel
procedures in recent years by the Civil Service Commission. Central records
on recruitment, training, promotion, retirement, and the like, are therefore
adequate; records of agencies pertaining to the administration of personnel
matters should be preserved only to the extent that they reflect special
or distinctive activities. The procedures that are followed in handling
property and supply matters are also performed pretty much the same way
in all agencies, and records pertaining to them usually do not contain
much evidence essential to an understanding of the functioning of a particular
agency. As a rule, then, records pertaining to internal management activities
that are distinctive, that deviate from the normal pattern, or that pertain
to problems peculiar to an agency should be preserved; those pertaining
to normal internal management activities should not.

Records pertaining to the execution of Government programs are
difficult to manage from an archival point of view. These records not only
have the greatest bulk; they present also the most serious problems of
evaluation. The dividing line between the executive direction and the execution
of Government programs is not a very sharp one. Records that evidence genuinely
significant matters relating to either direction or execution have permanent
value.

While a clear-cut distinction cannot be made between records relating
to the detailed execution of an agency's programs and those relating to
their overall direction, a difference between the two is perceptible. In
a typical Government program a number of interrelated activities occur
which normally relate to more detailed matters as one descends the administrative
ladder. At its bottom these activities relate to the dealings of the Government
with specific persons, things, or phenomena. At its top they relate to
administration and policy which are reflected in summary reports of accomplishment
and more general documents pertaining to such matters. Usually the evidence
on an agency's program is adequate that is provided in the form of (1)
summaries (statistical or narrative) of the transactions of a specific
kind, (2) a selection of records on particularly significant transactions,
and (3) a selection of records on transactions that are representative
of all or most of the transactions of a specific kind.

The extent of documentation required on the specific transactions of
an agency depends on the adequacy of its reporting system. Under an effective
system, performance will be recorded in narrative and statistical reports
for administrative purposes -- to evaluate progress, to formulate or revise
policies and procedures, and the like. Such reports often serve as an adequate
substitute for vast quantities of detailed records on routine operations.
Occasionally they may take the form of histories of activities, such as
the histories of the local boards of the Office of Price Administration
during the Second World War. In most agencies, even badly managed ones,
the patterns of activity and the accomplishments at lower administrative
levels will as a rule be adequately reflected in a limited quantity of
selected documents of one kind or another. Usually such activities are
conducted in accordance with orders, regulations, manuals of procedure,
and other directives issuing from superior offices.

In a National Archives Staff Information Paper on "The Appraisal
of Current and Recent Records," Dr. G. Philip Bauer observed that
"significant variations of policy, methods, or procedure and notable
occurrences usually manage to get themselves relayed upward through reports,
correspondence, and complaints, or else fail to get into the records of
the subordinate office."

Occasionally the summary records may have to be supplemented by records
of particular actions that have special significance for an agency's history.
On the enforcement of price, rationing, and rent regulations of the Office
of Price Administration, for example, a limited number of case files were
selected for retention (1) to illustrate the application of various sanctions,
both judicial and administrative, at Federal, State, and local levels;
(2) to illustrate the more interesting points of law in the enforcement
of such sanctions; and (3) to document outstanding events in the agency's
litigatory history. One of the criteria for the selection of the case files
was thus the significance of the actions to which they pertained. The initial
actions taken in new agencies or new programs may also be deserving of
fairly complete documentation, even at the grassroots level of operations.
Similarly, actions that represent significant deviations from the norm,
if not recorded at the policy level, should be reflected in records preserved
in sample as evidence of policy and procedure.

Occasionally, also, the summary records may have to be supplemented
by a selection of records that illustrate the pattern or norm of action.
Here the emphasis is not on the unusual or significant but on the usual
or normal. Actions at the lower organizational levels may be illustrated
by retaining either all records of particular offices or particular records
of such offices. During the Second World War, a limited number of local
price and rationing hoards of the Office of Price Administration were designated
as "record boards," the records of which were preserved in their
entirety to illustrate how various problems were handled at the local board
level. This documentation of local hoard activities is supplemented by
the histories, which have already been mentioned, and by particular classes
of administrative records selected from various boards; it is probably
in excess of what is needed. "Even the records of a single field office
preserved to exemplify the administrative processes at the lower levels,"
Bauer states in his paper, "are likely to prove a disappointment when
they are closely examined in relation to headquarters records." Usually
it is not necessary to preserve all records of particular offices; usually
a few groups or series of records taken from one or more offices contain
all the evidence that is needed of the norm or pattern. A few case files
on how labor adjudication cases were conducted, for example, are adequate
as a record of the procedures that were followed. Usually if there is any
enduring interest in the individual acts of an agency it is because of
the nature of these acts rather than the governmental process involved.